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John Carmack on Next-Gen Consoles and Game Development

Carmack thinks that innovation in the game industry, since it won't often come from large professional development houses, will likely come from the modification or open source communities. There, people can try random ideas to see what works. Example? Counter-Strike, one of the most popular games played online today, which started out as a handful of mod-makers trying to make something fun.

The GPL license will allow people to take the Quake 3 engine and even go so far as to release a commercial product with it - provided that the source code is published alongside. Nobody has done this with any of the Quake engine games yet, but he hopes to see it happen someday.

As an aside, he noted that most companies are too secretive with their source code. "It's not about the magic in the source code," he says, it's about the tons of little decisions coders make along the way to producing a finished game. It's all in the execution.

Along with source code releases, and a commitment to mod tools for Quake 4, Carmack hopes that the current boom in cell phone gaming will help spur creativity in the industry. On the other hand, he notes that technology is moving so fast that even cell phone hardware development is growing exponentially. "Given a year or two we'll have PSP-level technology on cell phones," he says, which require large teams and budgets to put together. So that's one window that might be closing.

A Short Rant About Textures

Carmack wrapped things up with a short talk about his one pet peeve about the current state of graphics hardware. Firstly, he doesn't believe that any sort of procedural texture generation could ever look as good as something artists can put together with the right tools. Secondly, current hardware is based on the 'tiled textures' model, which he described as a "limited form of data compression," but that's not the only way to skin the texture cat.

Unique texturing, where artists can basically paint the textures of a whole scene using a set of tools and decals, can make a scene look incredible. Enemy Territory: Quake Wars is the first of id's attempts to play with this idea, visible in its huge but unique landscapes. "There's clearly a correct way to do this in hardware," Carmack claims, briefly explaining how to do so in technical terms. But the graphics hardware companies aren't taking the bait, and it's not being included in next-gen cards. He hopes to see that change.

Questions & Answers

A short Q&A followed the speech, but we'll only cover the highlights.

When asked about the differences in platforms, Carmack noted that there's less of a distinction between developing for the next-gen consoles as there is for this generation. The difference between the Xbox and the PS2 was massive, but going back and forth between the Xbox 360 and the PS3 looks to be less of a problem. (Although still difficult.)

PSP or DS? Carmack hasn't really looked at the two handheld systems in depth, but he says he really likes the PSP. Although the development tools aren't as good as what Microsoft would do, he likes the relatively simple architecture of the system. He estimates that the PSP could run a Quake 3 level of technology, but has no immediate plans to develop for it.